Dr. Anderson is a developmental biologist who has spent decades discovering the genes and proteins that interact during embryonic development to control embryonic patterning in both Drosophila and mice. Her work with genetic screening has led to seminal discoveries including genes controlling the body plan of the Drosophila embryo, the immune response in fruit flies and mammals, and the early development of mammalian embryos.

Dr. Anderson earned her PhD degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been at Memorial Sloan Kettering since 1996. She holds the Enid A. Haupt Chair in Developmental Biology and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

The medal is named in honor of Thomas Hunt Morgan, a classical geneticist who laid the foundation for modern genetics with his studies on the pattern of inheritance of genes and chromosomes.